OSIL Delivers Multiple Corer for Southern Ocean Studies

Ocean Scientific International Ltd (OSIL) has delivered a 12-station Multiple Corer to Colorado-based ASC, the support contractor to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), for use in Antarctic waters.

The corer will be deployed for projects by the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a joint project of the United Kingdom’s Natural Environment Research Council and NSF’s Office of Polar Programs, which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program. The corer will be used to investigate the role of the Southern Ocean biological pump in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide, and to determine the sediment-water fluxes of dissolved compounds in West Antarctic Shelf sediments.

The multiple corer can consistently collect up to 12 high-quality sediment samples simultaneously, which include the overlying supernatant water and benthic fauna. It is hydrostatically damped to control the speed of descent of the core tubes into the sediment and is constructed from stainless steel. The system features detachable core assemblies, which enables the core tubes or entire core tube assembly to be removed from the corer for analysis or storage. The corers are available in a 600mm (23.6 inch) or 800mm (31.5 inch) length core tube specification.